


Between the Stitches

by lustmordred



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-14
Updated: 2011-12-14
Packaged: 2017-10-27 08:44:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/293872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lustmordred/pseuds/lustmordred
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even though Sam really loves the guy, being the damsel in distress all the time sucks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between the Stitches

We have not touched the stars,  
nor are we forgiven, which brings us back  
to the hero’s shoulders and a gentleness that comes,  
not from the absence of violence, but despite  
the abundance of it.

  
_Richard Siken (Snow and Dirty Rain)_   


 

Sam was back at his desk less than an hour when he had a newspaper waved in front of his nose by his boss. Mr. Zandor, his editor, was ecstatic and Sam looked down at the front page photograph as the paper was smacked down on his desk with a sinking sensation in his stomach and a little groan.

In the picture, Castiel, their hero whom they called _The Grigori_ or, more commonly, just _Angel_ , had his arms around Sam, his hands on Sam’s cheeks to tilt his head up and was looking into his face. Sam had been kneeling on the bridge, he still imagines he can feel the rope burns on his wrists, though they’re long healed. There was an expression on the superhero’s face of real concern, a light of worry in his blue, blue eyes. As well there should be, Sam thought, since he’d nearly died and Castiel had nearly been too late this time. His recent stint in the hospital was evidence of that.

But it was the _romance_ of it all that had Nicholas Zandor leaning his hip on Sam’s desk, beaming down at him like an idiot. Romance sold. Danger sold. Romance, danger and superheroes sold by the truckload, especially when the guy romantically entangled with said superhero just happened to work for the paper covering the story.

Sam scowled down at the picture, which was really kind of embarrassing, and could swear he felt himself die inside just a little bit.

“You made the front page, Winchester,” Mr. Zandor said, gloating.

Sam put his head down on his desk with a grunt and hoped he would just go away. “I’m aware of that, sir. I’m so glad my recent brush with death has made you so happy.”

“Damn right it has,” Mr. Zandor said. He clapped Sam on the shoulder, making him jump. “Keep up the good work, son.”

“No problem, sir,” Sam mumbled. “I’m sure there are still plenty of people out there planning to kill me and take over the world. I’ll be sure to keep you updated.”

“You do that, Winchester, you do that,” Mr. Zandor said. “Tell Angel I said hello. Oh and damn it, man, when are you going to get me those pictures?”

“When hell freezes over, sir,” Sam muttered without raising his head. Mr. Zandor had been on Sam’s case for over a year to get him exclusive pictures of Castiel. Preferably naked. By now it was something of a private joke between them.

Laughing to himself, Mr. Zandor left Sam alone and went back to his office. Sam waited a minute then finally lifted his head from his desk with a sigh and dragged a hand through his hair.

He had been sure he was ready to go back to work, but he hadn’t figured in the fact that once again, he wasn’t reporting the tastiest news anymore, he _was_ the tastiest news. He was the topic of all the gossip around the water cooler and the reason there were reporters from _other_ papers trying to sneak by security in the lobby every ten minutes. Oh and some genius guy with delusions of grandeur who wanted to be high up on the list of candidates for Angel’s “arch nemesis” had kidnapped Sam and tried to feed him to a giant sea creature of indeterminable biology and so maybe he was still a little hung-up on that.

The thing was; story-hungry reporters he could understand because that was the nature of the job, so he wasn’t really that upset about the flashing cameras and irritating microphones and tape recorders being shoved in his face. It annoyed, but they were doing their jobs, which once upon a time had been _his_ job, too and it was a eat or be eaten profession. He understood that. But this time had been close. This time had been _really_ close. This time, Sam had almost died because Castiel had been almost too late and _that_ bothered him. It had never been that close before. There were a lot of things about being with Castiel that he could brush off, that he was more than willing to put up with, but he’d never before been so close to dying for it. All just so some nut job could make a point or get his two seconds of fame before Castiel smote his ass.

Sam always loved that part. It did funny, _girly_ things to his insides when Castiel whipped out his shining angel sword and drove it through someone, their body lighting up like a lantern for a second, then the fire going out inside them as they died.

Most superheroes didn’t kill the bad guys, but Castiel wasn’t most superheroes. He was an angel and he didn’t really understand mercy or the logic behind incarceration. Sam tended to agree and not just because he thought Castiel looked dead sexy when he was stabbing people. He also just really didn’t ever want one of them, one of the big badass bad guys with a grudge, to get free again and start plotting revenge. Vengeance against Castiel would undoubtedly involve Sam, likely mean lumps on the head and him tied up at some point, possibly with Sam being electrocuted, drowned, eaten, blown up, poisoned, squished, cut into pieces or dropped from a really high place.

When he thought about it like that (and he often did) he was one hundred percent behind Castiel’s decision to smite now and deal with the moral ramifications of it all later.

Besides, he didn’t _always_ kill them. He just didn’t take any great pains to keep them alive if they insisted on being difficult. Then after Angel hooked up with Sam Winchester and the whole world was talking about it, Castiel’s involvement with petty crooks went down considerably. For one thing, what with the superhero being into boys and all, women didn’t scream for his help nearly as often when their purses were snatched. That cut the petty crime calls down by at least half.

“Hey, Mr. Winchester,” said a voice beside him.

Sam looked up and blinked stupidly at Jimmy, who was there with the mail cart, holding out his mail for him. “Oh… hey, Jimmy,” Sam said.

He took his mail and put it down on his desk without looking at it.

“Lots of fan mail in there today,” Jimmy said. Jimmy Novak had a soft voice and an unassuming manner, so he didn’t mean anything by that. He wasn’t being an ass, he was a nice guy. Sometimes _too_ nice, but how could you dislike a guy for being too nice?

“Oh, yeah?” Sam said, trying to be polite, secretly thinking, _Fuck_.

“Oh, yeah, but I guess you’re used to that by now, huh?” Jimmy said. He took his glasses off and used the wide end of his loose, badly knotted tie to rub at them. He put them back on, lenses more smeared than clean and blinked owlishly at Sam with his bright blue eyes. “You know they even call you—”

“I _know_ ,” Sam said, cutting him off. He sighed and shook his head and sure enough, right there on top of the pile of his mail was a soft pink stationary envelope with a bright red lipstick kiss over the seal. Sam scowled at it, picked it up and flipped it into the trash without opening it. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.”

“Sorry,” Jimmy said. He put his hands in the pockets of his long coat, which he wore all the time, even indoors and looked down at the tips of his shoes with a frown. “I could go through it if you want?” he asked Sam tentatively. “Ah… You know, throw away anything that looks like it’s definitely not official. If you… um… want me to.”

Sam looked at him and smiled and Jimmy smiled back in response. For just a moment, Sam had a weird sense of déjà vu, but it passed and Jimmy was still watching him in expectation of an answer. “Nah, forget it,” Sam finally said. “I like the idea. God knows, I _love_ the idea, but I can’t let you do that. You’d get in trouble, especially if you accidentally threw out something important and I don’t want to put you in that position, man. Don’t worry, alright? This is my… life. I gotta deal with it my own way, you know?”

Jimmy nodded and looked almost embarrassed for having made the offer. “Yeah, okay,” he said quickly. “Sorry, I just… You just seem really damn upset about it sometimes, that’s all. But okay, I’m sorry. I just… I’m gonna take the mail now.”

“See you later, Jimmy,” Sam said, watching for a minute as he hurried to Mr. Zandor’s office door. “Really though, man, thank you.”

“Sure, okay,” Jimmy said. He rapped lightly on the glass of Mr. Zandor’s door and disappeared inside with the mail cart.

Sam swiveled his chair back around and put his face in his hands, elbows on the desk on either side of his pile of crap mail. He scowled down at another envelope with children’s drawings of flying people and hearts all over it then pushed back from his desk, stood and snatched up his coat from the back of his chair.

“Tell Mr. Zandor I’m going home,” Sam said to Jimmy as he came out of the editor’s office again.

“But… Mr. Winchester, are you sure…? Ah… are you okay?” Jimmy stammered.

Sam stuffed the little stack of his mail in his pocket, grabbed his laptop and notebooks and zipped them up in his shoulder bag then started for the door. “I’ll be fine. I’m… Just tell him I’m sick.”

Jimmy watched him leave with a perplexed frown and then stuck his head back in Nicholas Zandor’s office to give him the news. He quickly ducked back outside and pulled the door closed as Mr. Zandor cursed and threw his coffee cup in his general direction.

~~*~~

At home, Sam changed into thermal pajamas, made coffee, and sat down at his own desk to work, the mail forgotten in the pocket of his coat. He was savoring his third cup of coffee and reading over his article on the oil spill in Florida through the scented steam when the phone rang.

Sam tore his attention away from the computer screen and glared at the phone, thinking he might have to sic his boyfriend on someone’s unfortunate ass if his number had somehow been made public. This idea amused him enough that he was smiling as he put his coffee down and picked up the receiver.

“Winchester,” Sam said by way of greeting.

“Yeah, I know that, asshole,” Dean said on the other end of the line.

Sam grinned. “Hey, what’s up?”

“’What’s _up_?’ Are you fucking serious right now?” Dean demanded.

Sam’s grin slipped away and he lifted a brow. “Are you okay, Dean?”

“Funny, Sam,” his brother said dryly.

“Dude, tell me you are not drunk-dialing me right now,” Sam said. “I thought you promised Lisa you were going to cut back on—”

“What?” Dean said, then, “ _No_. This is not about me. You do not get to make this about me.”

“Okay,” Sam said slowly. “Then what’s it about?”

“ _You_ ,” Dean said. “Dude, you couldn’t even _call me_? I had to hear about you almost dying from some guy at work whose sister lives in L.A. and sent him the article. That’s messed up, man.”

“Dean,” Sam said patiently, “I almost die about three times a year. I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

“Of course it’s a _big deal_ , you idiot!” Dean shouted.

Sam held the phone away from his ear.

“It said the freak was trying to feed you to a sea monster,” Dean went on. “A _sea monster_ , Sam, really? That shit is a big deal.”

“It wasn’t a sea monster,” Sam said, rolling his eyes.

“It said ‘sea monster,’” Dean said. “If it wasn’t a sea monster, then what the hell was it? A fucking dolphin?”

“No, of course not, it was… Okay, technically I guess it was a sea monster,” Sam said.

“ _Technically_?” Dean said.

“Dean, stop fucking yelling at me or I’m hanging up on you,” Sam said.

Dean took a few audible breaths. “Your boyfriend’s a goddamn superhero, Sammy. How do you keep nearly being dead?”

“I don’t… It’s not his fault,” Sam said. “He can’t be everywhere at the same time and Dean, some of these guys are _smart_. They’re not stupid thugs; they’re like… important people and shit. They invent things and scheme and… It’s not his fault.”

“If you weren’t the guy’s missus, this shit wouldn’t be happening, either,” Dean said. “And seriously, Sam, is he that much different?”

“What the hell is _that_ supposed to mean?” Sam demanded. Dean sometimes said things implying that he didn’t really approve of Castiel and his relationship with his brother, but he mostly kept it to himself. He had to be really upset this time and Sam knew that, but still, how _dare he_?

“It means he’s not human, Sam. It means how do you know he even gives a shit about you and isn’t just… fucking you? I mean… he’s some kind of what? Fallen angel or something? How do you know he feels anything and he’s not just… bored?” Dean said.

Sam took a deep breath, let it out and promised himself he wasn’t going to scream at his brother. “Because I _know_ ,” Sam said through gritted teeth. “Because everyone else gets nothing but the shit in the newspaper, but I… _I_ get everything else, so I _know_.”

“Yeah and is that worth it?” Dean asked.

Sam rubbed the bridge of his nose with his finger and thumb. “Yeah, usually,” he said. “ _Mostly_.”

“I just don’t want you to get splattered or something because of this dude, you know? And you’re kinda beating the odds right now as it is. Your… Your luck’s gonna run out, that’s all I’m saying,” Dean said.

Sam laughed softly. “You’re such a jerk sometimes,” he said, because yeah, he _knew_ that. He just tried really hard not to think about it.

“Better a jerk than someone’s bitch, man,” Dean said.

“You’re married to Lisa, dude, your argument is invalid,” Sam said.

They both laughed at that and then Dean said, “I’m just freaked out about it, that’s all. I never met the guy, but… So I guess I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

Except he didn’t sound like he believed that, he sounded like now he was just trying to make peace with Sam. “There are good days,” Sam said. “Sometimes there are really, _really_ good days. Then it’s worth it.”

“Yeah?” Dean said. “Well that’s good because on the bad days, some asshole tries to sacrifice you to the kraken.”

Sam slumped against his desk laughing. It was funny now and he could laugh about it. So what if he remembered what it felt like tied up and hanging by a chain from the Gerald Desmond Bridge while some maniac used a dog whistle to summon a _thing_ that looked up at him with shiny, alien reptile eyes before it opened its wide jaws to leap up and devour him? So what? It was funny.

“I have to go,” Sam said, getting control of himself.

“Alright, Sammy, me too. I gotta pick up the kid from school,” Dean said. “Watch yourself, man.”

“Yeah,” Sam said. He started to hang up, then paused. “Dean?”

“Yeah, Sammy?” Dean said.

“How‘s Dad?” Sam asked. He didn‘t often ask it and he hadn‘t been to visit their father in the hospital where he had been committed for years, but sometimes he would ask, then he‘d feel uncomfortable because he wasn‘t sure he had the right. Dean was the one who took care of that. Dean was the one who took care of all that stuff.

“He‘s… better,” Dean said after a little while. “He‘s good, Sam. I‘ll tell him you said hi when I see him. I really do have to go, man.”

Sam sighed, feeling absurdly guilty, like Dean was once again letting him off the hook. “Sure. Bye, Dean.”

He hung up the phone and sat there staring at the framed photograph on the wall over his desk. It was a picture of Castiel wearing his dark blue uniform with the silver vambraces on his arms and the baldric fastened across his chest, his hair a mess and his halo askew because he’d just popped out of nowhere into the picture after a fight that had left him exhausted. The picture had been an accident, one taken by a young girl who was trying to photograph her brother and her parents in the park when The Grigori had appeared in the shot. The girl’s mother had doubles developed and sent Sam one at the paper. There was a date in the lower corner and Sam remembered that day quite clearly.

It was the first time Castiel came to him looking less than spectacular, less than completely calm and collected. It was the first time Castiel came to _him_ for reassurance and comfort. The first time Sam realized that maybe Castiel _needed_ him.

Sam had sent the woman a letter of thanks for the picture and he looked at it whenever he started to feel like Castiel was—unintentionally or not—ruining his life.

He lowered his eyes back the computer screen in front of him and pulled up his email to send the article off to Mr. Zandor without reading over the rest. He was going to get another cup of coffee and try to do something normal, like watch TV. _Anything_ but the news.

~~*~~

Sam found an Indiana Jones movie on TNT and stretched out on the sofa to watch it. He woke up several hours later with a crick in his neck and his cat, Griezzell, curled up and sleeping on him against the curve of his back. He lay there listening to her purr, feeling the warm weight of her against his skin and had a small internal debate with himself about disturbing her to get up or just going back to sleep.

He finally had to give in and get up or face the humiliation of wetting himself. Gently as he could, he moved the little black cat off of him and put her down on the sofa. She looked at him in her bemused cat way and Sam felt ridiculously guilty as he made his way to the bathroom.

He was still half asleep when he wandered back out of the bathroom a few minutes later, but it wasn’t yet dark outside so Sam didn’t feel like he could actually go to bed yet. Griezzell clearly had no qualms in that regard though, as she had relocated to the bedroom and confiscated his pillow. Smiling to himself, Sam started for the kitchen, thinking he might find something to zap in the microwave.

He halted just inside the doorway into the living room of his apartment. The French doors that led out onto the small balcony were open and the curtains swayed and billowed softly in the warm breeze coming in from the ocean not far away. Sam’s initial reaction to this was joy and excitement because Castiel never used the stairs or knocked like a normal person would do and those doors were usually his way in and out of the apartment. After about a minute of looking around for him when Castiel didn’t step out and announce himself, Sam started to get a little nervous. Castiel couldn’t be the only one who would look at the apartment building where Sam lived with the security guard in the lobby, the automatic locking doors, the video cameras and other security and think the easiest way to get to him was to just go straight to the source.

Castiel had a lot of enemies and now so did Sam.

“Is someone here?” Sam called into the room.

Sam edged his way along the wall to the counter just inside the kitchen where the nearest phone was. Even as he did it, he couldn’t help thinking that if it was someone who wanted to hurt him or kidnap him again, he’d be dead or gone long before the cops showed up.

“Ah… Cas?” Sam said.

“Yes,” Castiel said from behind him.

Sam jerked around, his hand holding the telephone receiver raised over his head like a club to defend himself, and Castiel caught his arm. Sam’s back hit the wall by the counter and he was staring into Castiel’s familiar, slightly mocking blue eyes.

“Don’t be afraid,” Castiel murmured, lips quirking just a little. “I mean you no harm.”

“Not… Cas, that’s really not cool,” Sam said.

“I apologize,” Castiel said. He gently took the telephone receiver out of Sam’s hand and put it back on the cradle. “I thought to surprise you, but not… quite so much.”

Sam slumped against the wall with a sigh of relief and shook his head. “It’s fine, I’m just… I’m jumpy. I guess I’m still freaked out about that guy, that… What the hell was his name again?”

“Doctor Atlantis or so he called himself,” Castiel said. He reached out a hand and brushed Sam’s overlong hair back behind his ear. “His real name is Doctor Ambrose Pierce. He’s a microbiologist with a strange affinity for marine creatures. Unfortunately.”

“Fucker,” was all Sam had to say about that.

“Yes, well, he’s going to be spending the rest of his life in San Quentin State Prison, so it’s quite possible,” Castiel said.

Sam stared at him. “Did you just make a joke?” he asked.

Castiel sighed. “I may have attempted one,” he admitted. “Was it very bad?”

“It was all right,” Sam said. He smiled faintly and stood away from the wall to lean closer to Castiel. He was about four inches taller than Castiel, so Castiel had to tilt his head back to maintain eye contact. “Really.”

“It was bad,” Castiel decided.

“It was funny,” Sam said. He cupped the side of Castiel’s face in his hand and urged him to raise his chin. “I liked it.”

“You did not laugh,” Castiel pointed out.

Sam grinned and brushed his lips over Castiel’s mouth. “I was distracted.”

“Hmm, that is very distracting,” Castiel said. He opened his mouth under Sam’s nipping kiss and Sam moaned.

Sam ran his hands over Castiel, searching for something to hold onto or grab, finally settling on the baldric across his chest. Superhero outfits were inconvenient like that. This thought made him laugh and they had to stop kissing. “Maybe we should… you know… relocate,” Sam said.

“Do you have a specific location in mind?” Castiel asked, cocking his head curiously to one side.

“Ah, nothing drastic, I was just thinking the bed,” Sam said, well aware that Castiel could beam them both to Mozambique in the blink of an eye if he wanted to. “And can we—”

There was a rush of air and a sound like electricity and music then Sam was on his back on the bed in his room and Castiel was on top of him, smiling down at him in a way that was positively _smug_. “Walk,” Sam said, finishing the sentence he’d started before Castiel moved them.

Castiel frowned. “Should we go back to the kitchen and walk?” he asked.

Sam snorted laughter and shook his head, wrapping his arms around him in a hug. “I love you, you know,” he said, still grinning. “I really can’t help it.”

Castiel shifted to fold his arms on Sam’s chest and look down at him. “I am sorry,” he said.

Sam frowned at him. “For what?”

“I put you in danger,” he said. He smiled a little then closed his eyes and put his head down. “I should know better, but I can’t help it.”

Not in the mood for sex anymore, Sam ran his fingers through Castiel’s hair, petting the tangled strands to make them soft again. His fingers kept catching on the gold circlet Castiel wore and he finally took it off and dropped it over the side of the bed on the floor.

“I just want to be safe,” Sam murmured. “I want to write about something that isn’t you and I still want you when I’m done. That’s all. I’m not a celebrity, you know?”

“I know,” Castiel said. “There is no safety, though. There is only the illusion of safety.”

Sam scowled up at the ceiling. “Then maybe I want the illusion of safety,” he said.

“I can give it to you,” Castiel said, but he had gone tense and Sam lay there running the last little bit of their conversation over in his mind.

It occurred to him that Castiel was offering to leave him. “No,” he said, arms instantly tightening around him. “I don’t think… I’m not ready for that.”

Castiel relaxed slightly and let out a soft breath. “You will let me know when you are?” he said.

Sam closed his eyes and sighed. “Yeah,” he said. He suddenly sat up and pushed Castiel off, reaching for the buckle across his chest. “Let’s get this shit off you, okay? You’re going to roll over in your sleep and that sword’s gonna whack me in the face.”

Castiel’s eyebrows shot up, but he leaned back to allow Sam room to pull at his clothes. “I can take everything off without… Unless you prefer to do it this way.”

Sam got the belt and sheath off and tossed the sword onto a chair, then turned back to Castiel with a confused look on his face. There were no zippers or buttons anywhere on the suit, just straight down his body blue fabric without fastening or opening that he could see.

“Yeah, maybe you should do that,” he said. He had never undressed Castiel and this was obviously why.

Sam blinked and Castiel was naked, watching him with that strange creature curiosity of his. “Would you like to—”

“I think I’m tired,” Sam said.

Castiel went silent then nodded and shifted on the bed to pull back the covers and lay down. Griezzell jumped up on the bed and rubbed against Castiel before head-butting him and stretching out beside him.

Sam watched this and felt like an asshole. “I’m sorry,” he said, climbing under the covers with Castiel.

Castiel turned his head to look at him over his shoulder. “For what?”

“I’m not… I don’t know,” Sam said.

Castiel frowned in confusion and petted Griezzell’s back. “Sam,” he said, “I am still unfamiliar with human behavior in many ways. Tell me, are we fighting?”

Sam thought about it then shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “This isn’t really… fighting.”

“In a relationship sense then,” Castiel said.

“Maybe,” Sam said. “I don’t know. I always kinda thought fighting with you would involve more… Just more.”

“I see,” Castiel said. He lay his head back down on the pillow and continued gently petting the cat. “Goodnight, Sam.”

“Goodnight,” Sam said. “Hey, are you going to stay?”

Castiel smiled a little, but he didn’t turn to look at him again. “I will try,” he said.

~~*~~

When Sam woke up the next morning, he was alone in the bed, even the cat had abandoned him for a spot on the floor where the sun was shining. He ran one arm out over the bed beside him, but the sheets were cold. Castiel had been gone a long time, perhaps all night and Sam really wasn’t surprised. He grumbled wordlessly and buried his face in his pillow, for a brief minute entertaining the idea of milking his recent brush with death for all it was worth just so he could stay home one more day and feel sorry for himself.

Then he got up and stumbled into the kitchen to turn on the coffee pot. He knew he was just being lazy and avoidant anyway. Hell, his injuries hadn’t been deadly and Castiel had healed them all with a touch anyway. The hospital stay had been more for observational purposes and his state of mind, so physically he was dandy.

Mentally and emotionally… not so much.

“Fucking angels,” Sam mumbled and went into the bathroom, slamming the door behind himself just because.

Though he cursed him, Sam would never claim that he didn’t also love him, that there wasn’t also some level of affection in it every time he got pissed off. It wasn’t walk-away anger, it was the kind of anger that also had more than a little resignation to it because he knew he couldn’t change Castiel and if he could, he wouldn’t.

People talked about him behind his back, behind their hands, whispering to each other in their little cliques, making up jokes and Sam _knew_ some of the things they said. He knew they sometimes called him Mrs. Angel like he was Castiel’s stay at home wife and that no one took him seriously as a journalist anymore, which was why he got stuck writing filler pieces about oil spills in Florida instead of chasing the stories like he used to.

When Sam met Castiel, he’d been a wet behind the ears hotshot journalist just like all the rest and just like all the rest he had been following the superhero called The Grigori all over Los Angeles looking for the scoop. Now he was Mrs. Angel, a one of a kind commodity for the paper, but not valued for his writing ability. And the name hurt, it did, though not for the reasons it was intended to. It hurt because being the damsel in distress sucked balls. It hurt because most days, Sam felt more like the mistress than the wife.

He drank his first cup of coffee at the counter in his pajamas while perched on a barstool reading the paper. He was in it again and just turned back the first three pages to avoid it, reading the business and sports sections, eyes passing over his own article, which Mr. Zandor had cut the word count down on by nearly half in final edit. Sam made toast and eggs for breakfast then showered and got dressed for work.

He did it all alone without the sound of anyone moving around the apartment with him, without sliding by them, without helping them with their tie or making dinner plans. He went to work without expecting to find anyone waiting for him when he got home at night or anyone that he particularly had to wait _for_. Castiel would come when he would, that was how it had always been. Sam would wait in his way and endure the rest, waiting too for one more unpredictable calamity to find him because he was Mrs. Angel.

~~*~~

The next two weeks were strange, even by Sam’s admittedly high standards.

He didn’t see Castiel at all, which was a first for them since that day three years and some change before when they first met. Things died down and people stopped harassing Sam on his way in to work and standing in line at the grocery store… until the next time, anyway. Mr. Zandor actually gave him an honest to Christ story to work on involving murder and mayhem and best of all, not involving Castiel.

That weekend, Griezzell coughed up a hairball the size of a small puppy in the hallway outside the bathroom door. Sam, unfortunately, stepped on it in the middle of the night on his way to pee.

Everything was so _normal_ and for a little while, when he didn’t miss Castiel horribly, he was almost grateful. It was in the second week that he started to worry.

On Tuesday there was a fire in a high school downtown and at first, no one panicked because even if the fire trucks didn’t get there in time, there would always be Angel watching over them. Except the fire grew and grew and there were children trapped in a classroom on the third floor breathing through a cracked window while they waited for rescue, but Castiel didn’t save them. The firemen made it there just in time, saved the kids before the floor collapsed on top of them or beneath them and everyone was relieved and overjoyed… and confused.

On Wednesday, a train almost derailed because some stupid kids messing around had left a bike across the tracks. The conductor got it slowed down enough that when it started to slide, he had time to get it stopped and there were only minor injuries, but it could have been so much worse and _where_ was Castiel?

“I don’t understand it,” Sam said, staring down at the paper on his desk in bewilderment. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“What doesn’t make sense, Mr. Winchester?” Jimmy said by his elbow. He dropped Sam’s mail on the edge of his desk, surprising a little jump out of him. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It’s all right,” Sam said. He picked up the morning newspaper and waved it demonstratively. “ _This_. It doesn’t make any _sense_.”

Jimmy squinted, trying to read the paper through his smeared glasses while Sam gestured with it. “You mean that stuff about Angel?” Jimmy asked. “It’s just, what? Speculation anyway, huh?”

“Yeah, but I don’t _understand_ ,” Sam said.

“Well… why don’t you just ask him what’s going on, then? I mean… I’m sure everyone wants to know, right? Maybe he’s sick,” Jimmy suggested, though he frowned like he thought probably that was a stupid thing to say. “Or… I don’t know. Wait… why don’t _you_ know?”

Sam stared blankly down at the black and white photograph on the front page of the paper until it went out of focus before his eyes into a bunch of little dots. “I think we’re probably fighting,” Sam said finally. “Don’t _tell_ anyone,” he added hastily.

Wide-eyed, Jimmy shook his head. “I wouldn’t do that,” he swore. “I promise I wouldn’t do that.”

“Yeah, okay,” Sam said. “But what I don’t get is… I mean, okay maybe he’s pissed at me or what the fuck ever, but I still can’t believe he’d just disappear like that and leave people hanging. Jesus, there were _kids_ in that building, you know?”

“Maybe he’s not pissed,” Jimmy said with a shrug. “Maybe… I don’t know. Maybe he’s just sad. Or tired. Or something, I don’t know. It could be a lot of things, couldn’t it?”

“But you don’t just quit and let people die because you’re _depressed_ ,” Sam said.

Jimmy chewed at his bottom lip thoughtfully, then shrugged again. “Seems like a pretty hard job. Being a superhero, I mean,” he said. “You don’t get paid, you don’t get a life, you have to be everywhere at once and if you can’t always make it then fuck you. You’re a celebrity, but you’re also a freak. Seems like a really shit job. I think I’d quit if it was me.”

Sam raised his eyebrows at him and thought about that for a second. “You do realize that you deliver mail here, right?” he said. “I mean, don’t get me wrong or anything, but you are like the bottom dude on the totem pole around here, man and Mr. Zandor’s whipping boy to boot.”

Jimmy grinned and for just a moment Sam got a glimpse of the real potential there under his ratty suit, his badly fastened tie and that ungodly hideous trench coat. “Are you kidding?” Jimmy said. “I love this job.”

Sam grinned back at him then on impulse he said, “You want to go to lunch?”

Jimmy’s mouth fell open in surprise. “Ah… What, you mean right now?”

Sam checked his watch. “It’s ten after,” he said. “So yeah, right now.”

“Um… I don’t know if that’s… I mean…” Jimmy stammered, shifting uncomfortably on his feet.

Sam noticed his discomfort and frowned. “It’s only lunch with a friend, man. You gotta eat anyway, right?” Sam said.

“Oh,” Jimmy said. He looked a little relieved. “ _Oh_ , well yeah, sure. I can do that, I guess. I… Just let me take the rest of the mail, okay?”

“No problem,” Sam said. He stood up and grabbed his coat. “I’ll just meet you downstairs. That alright?”

“Yeah, sure. Sure it is,” Jimmy said, hurrying off with the mail cart. “I’ll be ten minutes, tops.”

They went to a sandwich shop and had gyros for lunch. Sam had coffee and Jimmy had a Coke with lots of ice and the whole thing was kind of awkward.

“So hey, can I ask you something?” Sam finally asked after catching Jimmy darting tentative looks his way between sips of his soda. The guy was a little high strung, always had been and Sam got the impression that Jimmy didn’t have many friends. Asking him out to eat lunch was kind of a big deal, but he needed to relax.

“Sure,” Jimmy said. He started to take a bite of his sandwich, reconsidered and put it down to wait for Sam’s question.

“You know you’re like the only person I’ve ever met after… well, after… Anyway, you’re the only guy around the office that never got weird about me and…” Sam trailed off and huffed out a breath, annoyed with himself. “You’re not star-struck, you’re not impressed, you’re not… jealous, you’re just… you. I think that’s really cool, but why is that?”

Jimmy seemed to think about it for a minute then he shrugged and picked up his sandwich again, this time taking a bite. He chewed and said, “What’s to be impressed about? So you’re dating the local superhero. Big deal. It’s not like we’re in high school and you’re dating the quarterback, is it? We’re supposed to be more mature than that. Besides, you’re just some guy and I don’t know Angel, do I? Maybe when he’s home with you and we’re not looking, he picks his nose and lays around on the couch all the time.”

Sam choked on a laugh at that mental image and shook his head, drinking his coffee to clear his throat. “Seriously?”

“Well, yeah,” Jimmy said. After a few seconds he added, “He doesn’t do that, though, does he?”

“ _No_ ,” Sam said, snickering again at the idea.

“All right, well I just think it’s pretty stupid to be in awe of you—no offense or anything—because you’re sleeping with someone famous. Hell, anyone can do that and it doesn’t really seem like it’s all candy and roses from what I’ve seen anyway,” Jimmy said.

Sam took a bite of his sandwich and nodded. “It’s not,” he said.

Jimmy paused as he was starting to take another bite of his sandwich and frowned. He put the sandwich down and looked at Sam thoughtfully. “Can I ask you a personal question?” he asked. “Um… you can say no, I won’t be mad.”

Sam had a hard time imagining Jimmy mad. “Sure,” he said. He licked sauce off the tip of his finger. “Long as it’s not something like what position does he like best. That’s like… _too_ personal.”

Jimmy flushed and ducked his head. “No, it’s not… It’s nothing like that,” he said.

“Then shoot,” Sam invited.

“I just wonder… because you don’t like the attention and… other stuff…”

“You mean like assholes all the time trying to kill me?” Sam said.

“Right,” Jimmy said. “I just… Do you regret it? Think maybe you should… I don’t know, maybe try someone normal for a little while?”

With a surprised bark of laughter, Sam shook his head. He didn’t think anyone had ever asked him that before. “Nuh-uh. I think about it, though,” Sam said. “Like… what would I be like if I hadn’t kissed him back that first time? If we were never… _we_? I do think about it, especially when I just can’t _stand_ some of the bullshit anymore. In my head, it’s normal and safe, perfectly uneventful and boring and no one tries to kill me because no one important cares and there are really fucked up times when I think I might even want that.”

Jimmy blinked at him in surprise and raised his eyebrows. He took his glasses off and rubbed at them with the end of his tie. “But you don’t?” he asked.

“Sure, sometimes. And sometimes I get it, at least a little bit for a few days or something,” Sam said. “Look, maybe I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into at first, but I know now. I’ve known it a long time. This is what it means to be _that_ guy. Sometimes it sucks like you wouldn’t even believe, but I’m willing to do it to keep being that guy.”

Jimmy rested his elbows on the table and leaned a little closer. “Why?” he asked.

Sam’s brow furrowed in concentration as he tried to think of a way to explain it. “Because he needs me to be,” he said after a moment. “Because I love him.”

Jimmy stared at him intently and after about a minute of that Sam looked away from him, uncomfortable with the focused attention and feeling a little stupid for telling someone who was mostly just a work acquaintance something that intimate. He was sure that if he wanted to, Jimmy could sell that story to some trash tabloid for a hefty sum of cash. He was also about one hundred percent certain the man would never do any such thing.

The table jerked as Jimmy startled and tensed in his seat across from Sam. “Ah… shit. I have to go,” he said. “Sorry.“ He hopped up and leaned over the table to take one last sip of his soda through the straw, dropped a ten on the table and hurried out of the sandwich shop.

Sam watched him go, sighed and went back to his food. He felt a bit like a fool now, but he figured he’d get over it. Whatever had just happened, Jimmy hadn’t been trying to be rude, Sam would bank on it. Most likely it had been some kind of emergency and his phone had just been on vibrate when the call came in.

~~*~~

The whole building was in a complete uproar when Sam returned from lunch. People were shouting questions and answers down the stairs and through the halls, none of which Sam could understand. They were gathered around the televisions and radios all through the building and a young reporter nearly knocked Sam down on his way out the door, his hat falling off and only one arm in his jacket.

“Winchester!” Mr. Zandor bellowed the moment Sam stepped through the door. “Good God, man, where the hell have you been?”

Sam blinked at him then looked around as every eye in the room turned from a TV screen to watch him pass. “Um… I went to lunch, sir,” he said.

Nicholas Zandor threw a companionable arm around his shoulders and started leading him toward his office. “No matter, no matter, you’re here now aren’t you?”

“I… uh. Sir… Mr. Z, what’s going on? It’s a fucking madhouse downstairs,” Sam said.

“You don’t _know_?” Mr. Zandor said. “Oh, well you wouldn’t I suppose, would you? Out to lunch, right. Well your boy’s back in town, Winchester. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Why didn’t I—My _what_?” Sam said. He allowed himself to be steered into Mr. Zandor’s office and frowned at the back of the television on his desk.

“Have a seat, son,” Mr. Zandor said, gently urging Sam down into the chair across from his desk.

Mr. Zandor reached over and turned the little TV around so Sam could see it. Sam caught a flash of blue on the screen and leaned forward.

There on the news, from all appearances being played on a loop as two reporters Sam didn’t recognize chatted about it, was Castiel. As he watched, it started over and a big rig truck ran a red light, heading straight for an Odyssey minivan. Literally out of nowhere, Castiel appeared and the truck stopped less than three inches from the van’s driver side door, caught as though suspended in gelatin. Castiel climbed up into the truck and manhandled the driver out onto the street, where he tied him up and left him sitting in the gutter before he disappeared.

“ _Tests confirmed that the driver of the truck was intoxicated. His blood alcohol content was measured at .29 and he was unintelligible when officers attempted to question him about the incident._ ”

Sam ran a hand through his hair before putting his face in his hands with a sigh of relief. “When did this happen?” he asked, looking back up at Mr. Zandor.

Mr. Zandor looked at his watch as he went around to sit behind his desk across from Sam. He tapped the face, frowned and then shrugged. “Looks like about half an hour ago,” he said.

While Sam was paying the bill at the sandwich shop or sometime as he was walking back to work. It had _just_ happened.

“You got your work on your computer, Winchester?” Mr. Zandor asked.

Sam nodded. “I… yeah. I was finishing up that piece for tomorrow, though I guess that’s not going to be front page news anymore, is it?” Sam said.

“Hardly,” Mr. Zandor said. “But look, I know it’s good work, so I’ll see if I can slip it in there. Maybe right after the front page shit about Angel. That’ll work, huh? Especially with it being _your_ story.”

Sam ran a hand over the back of his neck and shrugged a shoulder. They both knew Nicholas Zandor didn’t keep Sam on staff because of his work. They both also pretended that this was not the case. “Sure. I can’t argue with that,” Sam said.

“Good!” Mr. Zandor said, getting abruptly to his feet. “Now you should go home. Take the rest of the day, but send me that story if you want me to get it in for tomorrow.”

“Ah… all right,” Sam said. He got up and Mr. Zandor crossed the room to open the door for him though Sam was right next to it. Sam frowned at him then walked out of the office. “I’ll… see you tomorrow, sir.”

“You will, indeed,” Mr. Zandor said. “Now get out of here, Winchester. And hey, tell your man I said hi. We’re glad he’s back.” He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “And if you could find out where he’s been, what he’s been up to, why he left, anything at all like that, there might be a hefty bonus in it for you, Winchester. Something to think about.”

“No,” Sam said, his mild expression turning sour. “Bye, sir.”

“Bye-bye, Winchester,” Mr. Zandor called after Sam’s retreating back. “And think about it! Give Angel a big kiss for us all while you‘re at it!”

Sam made a low growling sound of annoyance in his throat and snatched up his stuff from his desk as quickly as he could. He didn’t even notice everyone staring at him as he left anymore. It was certainly not the first time he’d had to walk that particular gauntlet of shame.

~~*~~

Sam was sure there were a lot of people in the world who would think this not actually having to ever do your job thing was a pretty sweet deal. Hell, he _knew_ there were because even at work, there were whispers and spiteful bullshit from people who were envious, not so much of him and his life as his working/non-working celebrity by proxy status. Maybe it even was a pretty sweet deal, but most days Sam _hated_ it. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t be with Castiel and still do his goddamn job like he had been doing all along before he ever met the guy. Why wasn’t it possible for him to do that, put up with all the bullshit that entailed and still have what he wrote taken seriously?

He didn’t know, but it wasn’t. He had once had a co-worker try to explain it to him like if Britney Spears were to try to write a novel, would anyone take it seriously or would they just buy it because her name was on the cover and they had been plugging it on _Entertainment Tonight_? Sam had told the guy he wasn’t Britney Spears and the fact he had gone to college for journalism and done a fine job of it up until he became Mrs. Angel should damn well count for something. The guy had just smiled at him like Sam should know better and maybe not expect such things. Sam had restrained himself from punching the guy’s face in.

Sam didn’t have many friends.

What he _did_ have was a lot of free time. He always had time to do the chores and run the errands and pay the bills and when that was done, he always had some more free time. He was consequently seriously considering writing a book or something because free time was great but mostly it was boring.

So when he was sent home this time, Sam went to the grocery because he’d forgotten to buy cat food when he was there last, then he caught a cab back to the apartment building, running a list of potential hobbies to adopt through his head all the way up in the elevator.

He fed Griezzell first so she would stop loving up against his legs trying to trip him then Sam sat down at his desk to write. He brought up the article he had been working on and though it was nearly finished, he immediately put it away again and opened a new document. He sat there watching the cursor blink at him while he tried to have an idea. The cursor mocked his inability to find inspiration, blinking and blinking, _neener… neener… neener… neener…_

Sam huffed out a breath and put his forehead down on the desk with a soft thump. The fact was, he was not a creative writer, he was a goddamn journalist. Journalism was what he had always done, what he had always wanted to do, but creative writing where you just made shit up because the voices in your head told you to, well that was _hard_. And he had to face it; if he could do anything else, would it matter? No. He would always be _that guy_ and he was always going to be _that guy_ regardless of where he worked or what his job was. He could write a book, an idea would present itself eventually if he truly wanted to do that, but if he wanted to be taken seriously on his own merit, he would have to publish it under a pseudonym and never make public appearances, which meant no promotion, which meant low sales, which meant being dropped by his publisher on his own merit.

Sam lifted his head a tiny bit and let it thump on the desk again. Something dislodged from beneath a pile of books and papers and fell into his lap. Sam blinked down at it, a big white card envelope with hesitant, almost childish writing on it. It was addressed to him at the newspaper.

Fan mail.

Sam made a disgusted sound and picked the letter up. He was already reaching over to drop it unopened into the waste can when for no reason at all, he changed his mind. He opened it with a butter knife he kept on the desk for that purpose and two carefully folded sheets of college rule notebook paper slipped out. Sam unfolded the pages and started to scan them then stopped, started over and really read them.

It was a letter from a kid who lived in a small town in Pennsylvania. He was gay and had always known it and he got bullied for it a lot growing up, but he was never ashamed of it because even all the straight boys wanted to be The Grigori. All the straight little girls wanted to be Sam. So had the boy. He admired Sam because Sam was overshadowed and small and so was the boy. Sam wasn’t a hero, but he still wasn’t afraid. The boy wanted to be like that. He saw the school bullies that made fun of him and called him names like monsters and he thought of Sam being tied up to a bomb and being dangled in front of a monster and he said he could relate to that.

Sam didn’t know if the kid could ever really relate to that or not because metaphorical monsters were a completely different breed of monster, but he read the letter twice and felt his throat clenching up with tears. He felt like a big baby sitting there ready to cry, but felt sure it was still about to happen anyway. Most likely it wasn’t all because of the kid and his letter, because boredom bred depression like bacteria in a Petri dish and being taken for granted didn’t help much either. Then there was Castiel and it was going on two weeks since he’d seen him so maybe Sam was facing some abandonment issues on top of everything else, but yes, he was starting to cry.

He wiped at his eyes and the boy’s letter got all mangled and tear-covered in the process. It was soggy and a little balled up, but Sam smoothed it out on top of the desk and looked at it again then put his face in his hands and tried not to sob like a complete loser.

There was a knock on the French doors and Sam’s head came up. “Cas,” he said.

He jumped up, wiping at his face with the sleeves of his shirt and hurried to open the doors. They weren’t locked and there wasn’t a lock in the world that could have kept Castiel out anyway, but he had still knocked. This suggested something to Sam that he didn’t feel like dissecting at the moment.

He yanked the doors open and there was Castiel, standing there looking almost sheepish with his halo on crooked. He saw Sam had been crying and snapped to attention, bright eyes narrowing. “You are crying. What’s going on?” Castiel asked.

Instead of answering him, Sam pulled him inside and hugged him, pressing his face into the side of Castiel’s neck. His skin smelled like wind after a rough storm. It always did. “ _Where_ have you been?” he demanded.

He gave Castiel no chance to answer and kissed him, tears still caught in his lashes and salty on his mouth. Castiel put his arms around him and seemed to relax as though some great weight had been taken from his back. He brought his hands up to cup Sam’s face, thumbs wiping at the wetness beneath his eyes and broke the kiss to nuzzle him.

“I’m sorry,” Castiel said softly. “It was only what I thought you wanted. What I thought you… needed.”

“No,” Sam mumbled, pulling Castiel back in close to kiss him again. One hand strayed up the back of Castiel’s neck into his hair to catch the gold halo circlet on his head and take it off. “No,” he repeated and tossed it.

Castiel watched the gold ring bounce off the wall by a bookshelf and raised his eyebrows. “No,” he agreed. He looked at Sam with a faint smile on his lips and brushed the fallen hair out of his eyes with one hand. “Sam,” he said, “would you like to—”

“God yes,” Sam said, cutting him off with another quick kiss. “Yes,” he said, tugging Castiel through the living room toward the bedroom. “But this time… we’re walking.”

“I do not understand your aversion to my way as it’s much more expedient,” Castiel said, allowing Sam to pull him along.

Sam grinned at him, walking backwards through the bedroom door. He had his hands on Castiel’s hips and trusted him to not let him bang into anything. “Cas… which do you prefer? Afternoon quickies or being able to take your time about it?”

Castiel gave him a patient look. “That is hardly the same thing at all,” he said. “But of course I would prefer to take my time… once I have you there.”

“Right, well… I don’t like flying. It upsets me,” Sam said. He sat on the side of the bed and frowned. “Huh, I guess it’s not really the same thing, is it?”

“No,” Castiel said.

Sam lay back on the bed and stretched, tilting his head to watch Castiel, who stood there eyeing him as though considering where to begin. Sam smirked and ran a hand down his stomach to flick the tab on his zipper, moving his eyebrows in a suggestive wag.

“Why don’t you fly yourself out of that bodysuit thing,” Sam suggested. “Bet I can get naked before you can.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Castiel scoffed. He stood between Sam’s splayed legs and ran his palm down Sam’s thigh, a petting gesture more than a caressing one. “You know that’s ridiculous, don’t you?”

Sam shifted on the bed to prop himself on his elbows. “Prove it, flyboy.”

There was a wind tunnel rush of air and Castiel was crawling up on the bed over him without a stitch of clothing and an arrogant, teasing look on his face. “I believe that is settled as you are still wearing an intolerable number of garments while I… Well, I am not,” he murmured, leaning down to nip Sam’s bottom lip.

Sam ran a hand down Castiel’s naked back. “Why don’t you blink and make them go away?” he whispered.

Smiling down at him, Castiel brushed his lips over Sam’s. “Why don’t I?” he whispered back. “Take a breath.”

Sam caught his breath and there was a slide of ozone scented air along his skin, which was bare when he exhaled. He laughed and pulled Castiel down to kiss him, their arms becoming tangled as they both reached out to touch.

“What do you want?” Castiel murmured, pressing soft kisses down the side of Sam’s neck. “Tell me.”

Sam was breathing hard, his blood pounding in his ears and on the back of his tongue. Castiel rocked against him and an embarrassing sound too much like a whimper to be called anything else slipped from Sam’s mouth. “You,” he panted. He pulled at the back of Castiel’s neck to force him down more. “Inside of you,” he said, trying to kiss him as he spoke. “I want to fuck you, Cas, let me?”

Castiel made a low affirmative sound in his throat and pulled himself up Sam’s body to sit astride his hips. Still leaned over to kiss and nip at Sam’s mouth, he rolled his hips and Sam moaned, his hands going instantly to Castiel’s waist to hold him and time his own movements as he started to rock with him. Sweat started to break out on Sam’s skin as they moved and he started to shiver, pleasure a slick, slip-sliding sensation in his belly as it built. There was a rising urgency to it as they continued to move, rubbing their bodies together in a mimicry of mating and Sam thought he could come just from that and it would be fine. It would be fantastic anyway.

Sam caught Castiel watching him, bright eyes alight with an otherworldly, alien scrutiny and he smiled, his breath hitching as he tried to lift up and kiss him again. Castiel kissed him once, quickly then shifted on top of him and started to move off.

Sam caught his hips in his hands with a whining sound of protest, holding him there. “You are not leaving. God, tell me you’re not. I don’t care, let the building burn, the car crash, the baby get hit by a bus, _please_ don’t—”

“Shh, I’m not leaving,” Castiel said, putting a finger to Sam’s lips to silence him.

Reluctantly, Sam let his hands drop so Castiel could get off of him. He didn’t go very far at all though, just stretched his arm up to the nightstand at the head of the bed and yanked the drawer open.

“You have not moved it have… ah,” Castiel said, finding the little tube of lube they kept there.

The tube of lube which, Sam reflected, had been sadly neglected of late.

“You are smiling, what’s funny?” Castiel asked, settling back in Sam’s lap again.

“Nothing,” Sam said. “It’s just… we haven’t had much use for that in a while. That’s all I was thinking.”

“Hmm, well,” Castiel said thoughtfully as he flipped the top open with his thumb. “We shall just have to remedy that. At once.”

Castiel squeezed lubricant onto the fingers of one hand and gave the tube to Sam. Watching him with keen interest, Castiel rubbed both hands together to slick his fingers and wrapped them around Sam’s cock. Sam hissed a breath through his teeth as he gently squeezed. Pleasure that had been a low throb rekindled and goosebumps broke out on his skin as Castiel began to slowly work his hands.

Sam sucked his bottom lip between his teeth and pushed up into his hands, his dick sliding through Castiel’s slick, tight fingers, a low moan of pleasure in his throat. “God, Cas, I’m gonna come if you don’t stop doing… that.”

Smiling a little, Castiel leaned over him and breathed warmly against the shell of Sam’s ear. “Then perhaps you should hurry,” he whispered.

Sam shivered and fumbled with the tube of lube as Castiel continued to jerk him off, panting against the side of his neck. He got some of it on his fingers, rubbed them together and tossed the tube over the side of the bed. Castiel laughed into his shoulder and Sam cursed under his breath, his hands shaking with need and urgency.

“Breathe,” Castiel said softly. He mouthed Sam’s earlobe, smiling to himself. “Breathe, remember? Remember how you told me that first time? I was so scared of what you were doing, but a breath… then another and everything… was fine.”

Sam turned his head to the side to catch Castiel’s mouth in a deep, steadying kiss. That first time had been years ago, but he did remember. “Fine,” he murmured.

“Yes,” Castiel said.

Sam nodded and hooked his arm under Castiel’s thigh, lifting him up enough to feel along the crack of his ass and press with his fingers. Castiel caught his breath and slowly rocked back, Sam’s fingers sliding in the slick lube back and forth without penetrating him. His hands tightened around Sam’s cock and he gasped, thrusting up into it, and finally pushed his first two fingers into Castiel’s body. He meant to only press the tips of his fingers inside him, but Castiel moved with him at the same time he thrust them in and his fingers stroked palm-deep into his ass.

Castiel rubbed his thumb over the head of Sam’s cock and he made a soft desperate sound through his gritted teeth. Castiel laughed and took his hands away from Sam’s cock, ran his lube-sticky fingers over his hips, up over his belly to brace himself on Sam’s chest as he moved back on Sam’s hand, meeting him with each quick thrust of his fingers. Sam slipped another finger inside with the first two and Castiel shuddered as Sam stroked them over his prostate, his slick inner muscles squeezing around Sam’s fingers. A bolt of pure electric _hunger_ slammed through Sam somewhere around his abdomen as he felt Castiel’s body tighten against the backs of his fingers, the angel shivering all around him. It was a very slight loss of control, but it was genuine and all the more powerful because it was Castiel, who was always so calm, collected, so cool, who nothing seemed to ever touch. Sam moaned and lifted his head to catch Castiel’s open, panting mouth in a kiss, opening his fingers as he did just to feel the breath hitch in Castiel’s throat at the burn.

He was this beautiful, strange, uncanny creature and Sam was the only one in all the world who had ever seen him come apart, who had ever been there and felt it happen. There was a combination of power and humility in knowing that. No one else ever, in all of existence, had set eyes on Castiel moving like that, nearly fluid in his strength, back bowed, head rolled back to expose his vulnerable throat to the light, eyes closed but long lashes shivering like they wanted to open, muscles quivering in a very real, very human way. No one else got to have that, only Sam.

Sam slid his arm out from beneath Castiel’s thigh and ran his hand through his hair front to back, making it stand up a little then caught the back of his neck in his hand, fingers twisted in his tangled brown hair and pulled him down. Castiel panted with his mouth less than an inch from Sam’s, their breath mingling as Sam watched him, pressing his fingers up and deeply in, drawing soft gasps from him and finally a moan. With a possessive growl, Sam kissed him, their teeth clacking as they both opened to it, deepening it and Castiel laughed but the sound stretched into another moan between them as Sam withdrew his fingers from his body and caught Castiel’s hips in his hands.

Their eyes met and Castiel nodded then grasped Sam’s forearms to steady himself as Sam lowered him and rocked his hips up to draw Castiel down on his cock. Castiel clenched his fingers in the flesh of Sam’s arms, but he slid down easily all the way, taking him into his body in one swift, deep stroke. For a minute they stayed like that, Sam’s hands holding Castiel’s hips, not urging him to move beyond the gentle kneading presses of his fingers, Castiel astride him with his knees parted wide on either side of Sam’s hips, his fingertips gradually releasing their nearly painful hold on Sam’s arms.

Slowly, Castiel began to rock and Sam instantly caught his tentative rhythm and flexed his hips to push up and meet him. Castiel ran his tongue over his lips and let his eyes fall closed, quickening his pace gradually, Sam’s hands at last pulling and helping to move him as he rode him. Pleasure was a low beating pulse between them and it was both familiar and still wonderful, new in little ways that they neither understood nor cared about. They both chased the sensations until they were moving harder, faster, less controlled and more violent.

Sam ran his hands up Castiel’s back, his blunt fingernails lightly scraping over his shoulder blades until he felt something strange that he knew was there, like a muscle oddly misplaced, left without the limbs and ligaments that they were made to support. When Castiel’s shoulders and the muscles of his back tensed, it was like something roiling beneath Sam’s hands.

That was where he had once possessed wings. Real ones.

“You are so fucking beautiful,” Sam whispered to him, pulling at Castiel’s shoulders to make him lean down.

Castiel dragged both of his hands through his hair, raking it back in his own sweat from his face and laughed at Sam. “No, not so,” he said, breathing roughly. “I am intentionally ordinary in every way.”

Sam chuffed out a soft laugh of his own. “Intentionally?”

“Yes,” Castiel said. He took his hands out of his hair and seized Sam’s hands in his own, closed their fingers together and leaned over him to hold Sam’s arms down on the bed on either side of his head. He ran his tongue up Sam’s throat from the hollow to his chin and nipped him, leaving behind a fading pink mark. “By design. To be ordinary in appearance… is to walk among you unnoticed.”

“Something that you excel at,” Sam said and it managed to be dry as dust even though he had to gasp around the words.

Castiel laughed, his breath hitching around the sound and dropped a kiss to Sam’s throat, feeling the skin slide there as he swallowed. Sam clenched his fingers in Castiel’s and threw his hips up, fucking him with hard, snapping thrusts that made them both moan. The soft sounds in Castiel’s mouth hummed along Sam’s skin as Castiel trailed his kisses down, pressing them along his shoulders, his chest, catching a nipple in his mouth that he reflexively bit down on when Sam stroked just there and pleasure sang down his spine like a tuning fork.

Sam cried out and jerked, his arms coming away from the mattress before Castiel slammed them back down on the bed and held him there. Sam experienced a moment of panic at this rare demonstration of Castiel’s strength and ability to overpower him, but Castiel released his nipple and licked over it, soothing, laving it until Sam calmed again and lay there whimpering at the throbbing heat of the fading pain under Castiel’s tongue. Castiel arched his back into Sam’s thrusts, urging him on and rested his forehead on his chest, panting and gasping, soft whining noises barely escaping his throat, so faint but so damn pretty that it made Sam shudder to hear them.

He wanted to put his arms around Castiel, slip his fingers through his sweaty, tangled hair, touch his face, pull him up to kiss, but his fingers clenched and he was holding onto Castiel’s hands tightly, unable to reach for him. Castiel raised his head from Sam’s chest and kissed the point of his chin, licked up to his mouth and moaned as Sam kissed him back, growling in a frustrated, pleased way as he licked inside and Castiel responded.

They were still kissing when Castiel’s orgasm snapped through him like a punch to the stomach and he came, tearing his mouth away to cry out. He finally let go of Sam’s hands, his fingers sliding down Sam’s arms as he pushed himself up to sit back. Sam instantly put his arms around him, his hands against the small of Castiel’s back to support him and hold him as he quickened his pace, fast, sharp grinding thrusts of his hips that made Castiel shudder. When Sam came, he grasped Castiel’s hips and pulled him down tight against him and Castiel fell forward over him again, arms braced on the mattress this time so he could look down into his face and watch him. Sam tried to keep his eyes open and watch him back, but in the end he couldn’t and threw his head back on the pillow, a shout trapped in Castiel’s mouth as he kissed him.

When Sam stopped thrusting into him, Castiel slid limply down on his chest and they lay there panting like dogs and shivering in their own sweat as the air conditioner kicked on. Sam ran his fingers through Castiel’s damp hair and felt his eyes wanting to fall closed, heavy with exhaustion.

“If I ask, will you tell me why you were crying?” Castiel murmured.

Without opening his eyes, Sam smiled and shook his head. “Do you really want to know?”

“You have to ask me that?” Castiel said.

“I guess not,” Sam said. “It was stupid, really. I just got this letter from some kid. I’ve never been anyone’s role model or… hero before. It’s a… weird feeling.”

“It is,” Castiel agreed.

“It’s… frightening,” Sam said.

“How so?” Castiel asked.

“I don’t know, man. He’s a kid and I don’t know him. How am I supposed to live up to… anything?” Sam sighed and Castiel turned his head to rest his chin on his chest and look up at him. Sam ran a finger down his nose and smiled when Castiel wrinkled it. “I bet he gets beat up a lot more with me as his hero.”

Castiel made a dismissive sound and rolled off of Sam to stretch out beside him. “That is preposterous.”

“Yeah, but true,” Sam said. “I mean, who the hell has some faggoty news reporter who doesn’t even report the news anymore and is only famous because he’s screwing a superhero as a personal hero?”

Castiel sighed. “I didn’t say that it is not true, only preposterous,” he said. He put out a hand and ran the backs of his fingers down the side of Sam’s neck affectionately. “And don’t call yourself such names.”

“Sorry,” Sam mumbled.

“That’s not why you were really crying,” Castiel said.

“No,” Sam admitted. “I hate my job. I know that sounds lame, but my job used to be so great, like the best fucking job to have imaginable because I got to chase down stories and I had to get there before anyone else. Then there was the _story_ , you know? I loved the story. Your story was the last one I ever really told.”

Castiel scooted closer to him on the bed and rested his chin on Sam’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I know you’re unhappy.”

“I’m _frustrated_ ,” Sam corrected. He rolled onto his side to face Castiel and nuzzled his hand when he moved it to his face. “And annoyed. My god, at least three days a week, Zandor’s sending me home early or telling me not to even bother coming in. He still pays me like I’m working there, but most of the time, my shit never even makes it to print. I’m here _all_ the time or I’m paying my bills three weeks in advance just to have something to do. I’d quit and get something somewhere else, but it wouldn’t change anything. It would just start all over because the only thing I know how to do, the only thing I _want_ to do is what I’m not doing right now.”

Sam took a deep breath, let it out in a huff and frowned at Castiel. “And then you left me,” he said softly.

Castiel’s eyes widened. “I did not _leave you_ ,” he said.

“What would you call that then?” Sam demanded. “You were gone for almost _two weeks_ , Cas. I wasn’t really worried until the second week because yeah, sometimes you gotta step back, this shit gets intense, but you didn’t do that. You were just… gone. Everywhere, not just from me.”

“I took time to consider things,” Castiel said calmly.

“Oh yeah? Well did you figure anything out?” Sam said.

“I believe so,” Castiel said.

“Alright then,” Sam said. They were quiet for a minute then Sam jabbed him in the chest with his finger. “Don’t do it again.”

Castiel wrapped his fingers around Sam’s hand poking him in the chest and squeezed once gently. “I don’t think it will be necessary,” he said.

Sam flattened his hand under Castiel’s and nodded. “Good,” he said.

“Yes, I think so,” Castiel said.

Sam yawned and closed his eyes. “Will you stay?” he asked.

Castiel watched him as he began to fall asleep and smiled. “I will try,” he said.

~~*~~

It had been early in the afternoon when Sam fell asleep with Castiel beside him, so it was early in the middle of the night when he woke up. He reached his arm out to feel along Castiel’s side of the bed, but he found the sheets cold and empty.

Sam turned his head to look, but there was nothing but moonlight slanting through the large windows at the other end of the room, creeping up to the edge of the mattress. There on Castiel’s pillow was Griezzell, curled up in a tight little black ball of purring fluff. Sensing Sam’s eyes on her, she picked her head up and gazed back at him, her purr never faltering then got up and went over to rub herself against him.

“I’m gross, you shouldn’t do that until I shower,” Sam mumbled half into the pillow.

Griezzell meowed, still purring so that it warbled in her throat and butted her head against his nose.

“Ow, Griez, watch it,” Sam said, waving his hand at her.

She ignored him and arched against his hand.

Sam snickered and buried his face in his pillow. “You’re retarded,” he said.

Fully embracing this idea, Griezzell curled up in the curve of his armpit and licked him.

Sam laughed. “You’re Cas’s cat, it’s official,” he told her.

The cat just purred and closed her eyes.

Sam glanced at the glowing numbers of the clock on the nightstand. 11 o’clock. He didn’t know if that counted as too early or too late, but he didn’t really feel like moving, so he lay there listening to Griezzell purring until he fell asleep again. In a distant way, he wished Castiel were there beside him, that just once he would wake up and find him still there, but he also knew that would never happen. People had done fine without him before Castiel came along, but now he was there and they needed him. They depended on him.

He would be back. He would always be back, Sam knew that just like he knew that he would always be waiting.

~~*~~

For a few days, Sam didn’t see Castiel and he hardly heard about him. He saved a boy from drowning out near Zuma Beach and pulled a woman out of her car after she drove through traffic talking on her cell phone and flipped it, but that was about it. One thing Sam could say for having a resident superhero; it really did cut back on crime. You got both extremes, though. You got really petty crime like stealing the money out of vending machines, knocking over convenience stores, that kind of thing or you got guys like Doctor Atlantis who plotted for months, maybe years, before ever making a move, their ultimate goal: world domination. Of course, the latter were delusional, but that didn’t make them less dangerous.

At work, Sam wrote up a few articles that actually made the paper, mostly due to how quiet everything was concerning Angel. Lunches with Jimmy Novak became a regular thing and they found a diner only a block over from the paper that they both liked, so they often went there. Sometimes they would venture a little farther if they had more time and get pizza or subs or just pick up hotdogs and pretzels from a cart to eat while they walked.

It occurred to Sam after almost a week that he had known Jimmy more or less since he started working at the paper, but only in the last two weeks or so had they really become friends. It was strange and a little pathetic to discover how pleased he was by the change.

“So I think my cat’s pregnant,” Sam told him as they were walking back from the Chinese restaurant a few blocks over from the paper where they’d had lunch.

Jimmy’s eyebrows shot up and he looked at Sam over the rims of his glasses. “Yeah? Why do you think that?”

“She’s being weird… er than normal,” Sam said.

“Weird like how?” Jimmy said.

“Weird like she walks the halls yowling a lot,” Sam said. “And she’s… I don’t know. It’s like she’s looking for a place to squirt the little things out. Probably the middle of my bed, my luck.”

“Gross,” Jimmy said. He wrinkled his nose and Sam stared at him, watching him with a flicker of almost recognition. “Maybe you should make her up a box or something. How did she get pregnant anyway?”

“Hell if I know. Immaculate conception?” Sam said.

Jimmy coughed on a laugh and shook his head. “She’s a _cat_.”

“Well maybe she’s like… special,” Sam said. “The cutest kitty in the world, chosen by God to carry the next messiah. Erm… something.”

“You’re kind of a girl about that cat,” Jimmy said.

“I am not,” Sam said. He grinned. “You wanna be the godfather?”

“Um… not really?” Jimmy said, turning it into a question at the end in a way that made Sam laugh.

Sam was still laughing a little, walking on the inside of the sidewalk away from the traffic, his hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket because it was just a little windy out, but he was comfortable—more comfortable than he remembered being in another person’s company other than Castiel’s in far too long—when someone grabbed him and put a knife under his throat. Sam met glassy, bloodshot black eyes in a swarthy, sunken face and he thought dumbly, _Who are you?_ but he didn’t dare speak because the sharp edge of a blade was right under his chin over his pulse.

His back hit the gritty brick wall of the building they had been passing when he was grabbed, there was a cool trickle of blood sliding over his Adam’s apple, cold and gathering in the hollow of his throat and again the most ridiculous thought sprang into his mind. Castiel, his lips dry and cracked a little from panting, pressing his mouth just there, touching his tongue there because he liked it. He liked it, he had once told Sam, because Sam’s heart beat from necessity. His heart beat because if it didn’t he would cease to be. Sam asked him what he was talking about and that was when Castiel told him that his heart didn’t work that way.

It had been one of the very first times that Castiel’s complete inhumanity became truly real to him.

“You’re goanna give me yer money, ain’t ya?” the dark, sickly man with the knife asked Sam. He had his face so close to Sam’s that he could smell the sick stench of illness and sweat on his body and breath.

All Sam could think was a goanna was a lizard, what the hell was this guy even talking about?

The man put his arm flat against the side of Sam’s throat and pressed in with his elbow, fairly growling into his face. Sam wondered if Jimmy was okay. If Jimmy had run for help. He couldn’t see him around the body of the man with the knife. If he could just get free, he could say Castiel’s name and the angel would be there to rescue him like he always did. There were times when Sam was willing to admit that being rescued all the time was a little humiliating, but right now wasn’t one of them. Right now he was totally fine with being rescued because this guy didn’t know who Sam was, probably didn’t even know what he was doing and he definitely wasn’t going to hold him hostage as part of some plot to take over the world.

“I _said_ ,” the man with the knife snarled, “you give me yer money or I’ll fucking cut yer—”

“That would not be wise.”

Sam felt his heart leap, catch and then start beating again as he recognized that voice—the _tone_ in that voice. He could have sank to the ground in relief at the sound of that clear, sure, bordering on superior, arrogant, fucking _beautiful_ voice if he weren’t being held up against the wall by his assailant.

The man holding the knife on Sam didn’t let him go, but he turned his head to look and insanely, said, “Who the fuck’s gonna stop me, I want’a know? You?” and then he _laughed_.

“Don’t be foolish, of course I will stop you,” Castiel said.

Castiel stepped to one side and the way the man holding Sam to the wall was turned, he saw him and his shock was like being hit with an electric charge. He was… Jimmy. Jimmy was him. Castiel was wearing Jimmy Novak, he thought crazily, his mind reeling with all of the times Sam had almost recognized Jimmy as someone else. Every single gesture, mannerism, turn of phrase that was _Castiel’s_ that had never made sense to him at all because he couldn’t put two and two together and Jimmy Novak was the farthest thing from the superhero in every single way that Sam could ever imagine a person being. Except Jimmy had thrown off his perpetually smudged glasses, his constantly loose tie and even his ever-present trench coat and his eyes were flashing like diamonds in his anger.

Sam knew him now, God did he and he might be pissed off about it later, but right now he was so happy to see him there that he could have broke into song. Assuming of course he didn’t have an asshole junkie gouging his elbow into his neck and poking him with a knife.

“Who the fuck ’er you, then, gonna stop me? You just some pencil-pushing pussy in a suit, whatchoo gonna do?” He turned his attention back on Sam and glared into his face, this time with real intent and Sam wondered why he didn’t just pat him down and _take it_ , whatever it was he wanted. “You ain’t gonna do _nothin’_ cuz I got the knife right here, don’t I? Whatchoo got? A pocket protector, hot shit?”

Castiel met Sam’s eyes for just a moment and for just a moment, Sam looked into those bright, gas flame eyes and he was scared. Not in a personal way because Castiel would _never_ hurt him, but just scared of what he would do, what he _could_ do.

Then Castiel, absurdly, dropped one eyelid in a wink. “I have a bigger one,” he said, and he smiled, sharp and vicious, turning his gaze back to the man with the knife.

Sam saw the shine of it before he actually saw the sword, but the man holding him didn’t see it at all, he had his back to Castiel. Sam tensed, expecting Castiel to kill him then and there while the knife was still perilously close to his artery and Lord knew the angel was furious enough that the idea had probably crossed his mind, but he didn’t do it. Instead, he moved up close to the man’s back and invaded his space, made him aware of his presence and then the sword was between him and Sam, raised to press the needle-sharp tip to the underside of the man’s chin.

The sword glowed brightly and gave off a soft sound like a single note of music that never faded. Sam watched and saw the instant that his attacker realized the danger he was in. He was out of his depth and slow to understand that, which in his world usually meant death and Sam watched it dawn on him in the way his dirty, swarthy skin paled, his eyes went wide and terrified and his breathing became the frightened gasps of a cornered animal.

“You will release him now,” Castiel said, his voice low and close to the man’s ear. “ _Now_. Or I will not just kill you. I will take your _soul_.”

The guy started to nod, then stopped when the point of the sword cut his skin at the movement. “Shit,” he whispered. “I’m… fuck, I’m sorry. Don’t hurt me, man. I just wanted his money. I jus’… A guy’s gotta eat, y’ know?”

Castiel was not interested in his bullshit excuses. He tapped the tip of the sword lightly against the man’s quivering bottom lip. “I can take it,” Castiel said. “Every scrap of it, tattered as it is and rip it from you. Do you believe me?”

The man was shaking and, still staring into Sam’s face though no longer seeing him, he looked like he was on the verge of tears. He started to nod again, stopped and said, “Ye—Yes.”

“Cas, don’t,” Sam said. His soft words fell like stones into a well and they both stared at him. The man, who still had the knife to Sam’s throat, looked pathetically grateful once his words registered.

Castiel cocked his head a little and peered at him. “He would have killed you,” he said.

“I… I know,” Sam said. He looked pointedly at the guy and he seemed to remember it and lowered the knife. “Thank you,” Sam said. He didn’t move, though.

“I _should_ kill him,” Castiel whispered, turning his speculative cold eyes back to the man.

The guy started to shake violently. Sam could feel it moving along his arm, which was still against his throat. Now, with the threat so completely removed, he just looked pathetic and sad.

“I’m asking you not to,” Sam said.

Castiel frowned at him and Sam could almost see him trying to figure out this new, peculiar element of his humanity. “Mercy,” he finally decided though not as if he approved. “Tell me why.”

“Because, dude, it’s not personal,” Sam said patiently. Castiel had apparently been masquerading as Jimmy Novak right under his nose for years and he could fake a lot of shit really damn well, but he still didn’t understand most of it. “Because I could have been anybody, it wasn’t about _me_. Look at him, he doesn’t even know who the fuck I am. Hell, he doesn’t know who _you_ are, probably. This isn’t about us, he just wants some cash so he can go somewhere and shoot up or something. He’s already in a worse place than you could ever put him and man, he’s so far from trying to take over the world he may as well be a cockroach.”

Castiel turned his gaze again on the man. “To me he is,” he said.

“Okay, fine, but I’m not,” Sam said. “I’m asking you not to squish him.”

“Fine,” Castiel said. He backed up, pulling with the hand holding his sword against the man’s chest until he was away from Sam enough that Sam could slip away from the wall.

“Don’t pout,” Sam said to Castiel as he went to stand safely behind him.

“I am not… I _do_ not pout,” Castiel said.

Sam rolled his eyes. “Whatever,” he said because he _knew_ and Castiel couldn’t lie to him. Except, Sam thought, when he was pretending to be nerdy newspaper room gofers named Jimmy. “We are going to talk about this,” he said.

Castiel sighed and shoved the junkie away from him. He hit the wall with his shoulder and fell against a box on the sidewalk before staggering upright. “Go,” Castiel said, making a shooing motion with the hand not holding his sword.

The guy stumbled to his feet and took off down the sidewalk, shoving people and darting around parked cars until he was gone. Sam watched him go then looked at Castiel and shrugged. “Crackhead,” he said like that explained everything.

Castiel nodded and looked down at his sword then quickly put it away, slipping it into the sheath at his back, which he was wearing under his Jimmy Novak clothes. “Are you angry?” he asked Sam and he looked uneasy about his answer.

Sam ran a hand through his hair and shook his head. “Nah,” he said. “I mean… I should be. I probably will be, actually. Right now? I’m exhausted. Fucking guy scared the hell out of me and then I thought ‘Where’s Jimmy? Did he go for help? Did he run?’ Stupid, I guess. But fuck, Cas… Okay, we _are_ going to talk about this because… Well, lying is bad. I know this might be a weird concept, but it is.”

“I am aware of the moral standpoint on untruths,” Castiel said dryly.

“Oh really? You mean like you’re aware of the moral standpoint on taking the souls of junkies? You mean like that?” Sam said.

“Your sarcasm is not necessary,” Castiel said.

“It is totally fucking necessary!” Sam said, suddenly losing it just a little. He took a breath and made himself calm down before it escalated into full-on hysterics. “Okay. Okay, I’m good. I’m fine. Did I thank you?”

“That is not—”

“Necessary, gotcha,” Sam said. “I’m calling Zandor,” he said, pointing a finger at Castiel’s chest. “And we’re going home early to talk about this. I don’t care what’s going on either, man. You are going home with me, no arguments.”

Castiel smiled faintly at him. “Of course,” he said.

~~*~~

A week later it was all over the news that Sam Winchester had finally broken it off with The Grigori. He had broken things off with Castiel after a relationship that had lasted years in the public eye, after being placed again and again in danger and still sticking with it, after becoming little more than a celebrity by proxy because of who he was fucking. After all of it, he had finally had too much. Every news program talked about it like they knew anything about it. Every sitcom dropped hints of it into their gags. Every daytime television show was discussing it. The tabloids were eating it up and exploding their drivel all over every aisle of every grocery store in America.

Sam Winchester had broken Angel’s heart. That was the line of thought they were mostly going with.

After the second day of prank calls, hate calls, and irritating calls offering him money for interviews, Sam unplugged the phone in the apartment and turned off his cell phone. He tried to go to work, but it was worse there than it had ever been every single time he had almost been blown up, chopped up, smushed or fed to a biologically engineered sea monster. If he had died tragically, it would have been received better. It would have at least been tragic.

Mr. Zandor hadn’t fired him because Mr. Zandor didn’t give a shit about Angel or about Sam Winchester or about Angel & Sam Winchester. He gave a shit about selling the news and had decided a long time ago that whatever Sam did or didn’t do, he would always be bringing in the news. He did, however, get a little miffed when he was unable to contact Sam any other way but through email for two weeks. He went so far as to threaten to physically show up at Sam’s apartment so that they could “discuss” some things.

Sam told him that they could conduct business just fine through email until things died down.

Mr. Zandor tried to argue and reason with him and Sam told him he would have the doorman throw him out, which wouldn‘t hurt as bad as it would have if he still had Castiel to do it for him, but would still be humiliating.

Mr. Zandor agreed to do it Sam’s way.

“This shit is insane,” Sam said. He had just finished emailing his boss for what felt like the thousandth time. It was late and he was tired. His body hurt from being cooped up in the apartment, but it was a small sacrifice in his opinion.

“It will eventually die down,” Castiel said. He was laying on his stomach on his side of the bed reading a book. The smeared glasses were on the nightstand, no use to him.

“Do I even dare turn the phone on long enough to call my brother?” Sam said. He flopped down on his side of the bed and looked at his cell phone, considering it. “I can dial faster than they can get through, ya think?”

“Depends entirely on how badly you want to speak to your brother, doesn’t it?” Castiel said. He turned a page in his book.

Sam sighed. “Yeah. Okay, here goes… Wish me luck,” he said. He turned the phone on.

“God speed,” Castiel said, lifting one hand to give him a mocking salute. He turned another page.

Sam turned on his phone and hit the number for Dean on his speed-dial. “Ha! Fuckers, I win!” he said to no one as the phone rang.

“Congratulations,” Castiel said, his lips quirking in amusement.

Dean didn’t answer the phone like a normal human being with a polite “Hello?” He answered the phone with, “Why the fuck haven’t you called me?”

Sam grinned. “Hey, man, good to hear your voice, too.”

“I’m serious, Sam. What the hell?” Dean said.

“Things are pretty crazy,” Sam said. “I’ve had my phone off.”

“I know, I tried to call your ass,” Dean said.

“Oh, well yeah, anyway it’s been off. At least until shit calms down, you know?” Sam said.

“So what happened?” Dean said.

“The story’s everywhere, you know what happened,” Sam said.

Beside him on the bed, Castiel made a soft scoffing sound.

“I know what _they_ say happened, Sammy. You know how I feel about the Cult of They,” Dean said. “They know nothing.”

“I believe I could like your brother,” Castiel said.

Sam put his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. “You’re eavesdropping,” he hissed.

Castiel looked at him with one brow raised. “You’re sitting right beside me. A human could hear this conversation in its entirety without trying.”

Sam sighed and put the phone back to his ear.

“Who is that?” Dean demanded suspiciously.

“That… That’s Cas,” Sam said.

“ _What?_ ” Dean said.

“It’s—”

“I thought you broke up,” Dean said. “I mean… is that even the right term for it? ‘Broke up’ sounds so high school cheerleader.”

“Shut up, no we didn’t… We’re not _broke up_ , okay?” Sam said. “That’s part of why I called.”

“Dude, someone needs to inform Sixty Minutes then because I think they’re doing a special,” Dean said.

“No,” Sam said, thinking, _Please, God, no._

“Nah, but I saw it in _People_ the other day when I was with Lisa at the store. Is that even right? I mean, he’s not human, does he qualify as _people_?” Dean said.

“Shut up. Why did I call you?” Sam said through gritted teeth.

“You love me?” Dean suggested.

“No,” Sam said.

Castiel chuffed out a laugh beside him.

“Okay, yes, but no,” Sam said. “I wanted to tell you because um… this is complicated.”

“More complicated than sea monsters?” Dean said.

“Um… probably,” Sam said. “No risk of getting eaten though. Hopefully. I mean, that was the plan, anyway.”

“You fake broke up so the next bad guy won’t kidnap you and feed you to the flora and fauna?” Dean said.

“Basically, yeah,” Sam said. And it had been putting a strain on their relationship for a while already, but Dean didn’t need to hear about that. “So I’ll be dating his um… What are we calling it, Cas?”

“I believe you settled on ‘secret identity’ while I am still in favor of ‘simulacrum,’” Castiel said.

“Secret identity,” Dean said in a way that said he was throwing in his vote with Sam’s.

Castiel sighed. “Very well,” he said.

“His name is Jimmy,” Sam supplied.

“Who? The identity?” Dean said.

“Yeah,” Sam said. He also didn’t tell Dean about how he’d come to know this. No one, including Dean, needed to know about that either. “So… I was thinking we’d come home to Kansas for Christmas.”

“Oh yeah?” Dean said. “That would be cool. You gonna fly?”

“Um…” Sam exchanged a knowing look with Castiel and grinned. “Essentially, yeah.”

“Oh,” Dean said. “Well look, be careful where you beam in or whatever it is. I… I gotta tell you something Sam and don’t be mad.”

“That is not a promising way to begin any conversation,” Sam said.

“They’re letting Dad come home,” Dean blurted.

Sam took the phone away from his ear and stared at it in disbelief. “Are they fucking insane?!” he said when he put it back to his ear.

“I know, okay?” Dean said. “I know. I… He’s doing better. They were going to transfer him to this place over in Massachusetts and look, I talked to the doctors and got them to release him. Into my care, you know?”

“Dean… that’s a bad idea. You know how Dad is,” Sam said. “He’ll take it into his head that Ben or Lisa are demons and try to stab them.”

“No he won’t,” Dean said stubbornly. “I’ve been visiting him all the time, Sam. He’s better. He still has… delusions. But dude, he _knows_ they’re delusions. He really is getting better. I wouldn’t let him around my kid and my wife if I didn’t think so, you know that. Come on.”

Sam did know that. “Okay,” he said after a minute. “Okay, but seriously, _watch him_. If he starts going all _Frailty_ and shit again, you call someone to come get him. Don’t fuck around with that crap, Dean. I love him, too, but he could really hurt someone if he deteriorates again, you know?”

“Yeah,” Dean said.

“So, Christmas?” Sam said, trying to return the conversation back to something less emotionally charged.

“Yeah and bring the husband. I need to meet the guy,” Dean said.

“He is not my—”

“I know,” Dean said. “Look, man, I’ll talk to you later. I’ve gotta go tuck the kid in and play with my wife. She gets cranky if she’s neglected.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Right. Alright, I’ll talk to you later. Night, Dean.”

He hung up the phone and sat there with it cradled in his lap. “Shit.”

“Have you ever considered the possibility that your father is not completely delusional?” Castiel said. He closed his book and put it on the nightstand.

Sam scrubbed his hands over his face and made a humorless laughing sound. “Honestly?” he said. “No.”

“Well… Perhaps he isn’t. Completely,” Castiel said.

“He tried to kill our next door neighbor with the axe we had for chopping wood,” Sam said. “She was bringing over a pie for some holiday. I think it was Thanksgiving. He told people she was a demon and that God had marked her for death.”

“Alright, well that is highly unlikely,” Castiel said. “But he has the right idea, if that’s at all helpful.”

Sam looked at him and frowned.

“No, I suppose it isn’t,” Castiel said. “But there _are_ demons, just as there are angels and they often reside in human form same as I do.”

“I’ll give you that since you would know,” Sam said. “But my dad can’t see them. He’s just sick.”

“Probably so,” Castiel said. He put a hand on Sam’s calf and gently massaged the inside of his knee. Castiel had one leg hanging over the side of the bed and Griezzell wandered over to nip at his toes.

Sam leaned over the side of the bed to look at her when Castiel twitched and drew his leg back up on the bed.

“Hey there, Fat Ass,” Sam said cheerfully to the hugely pregnant cat.

Griezzell blinked up at him and made a soft, pitiful beeping sound, demanding to be picked up and put on the bed.

Castiel leaned over to pick her up and settled her between them, stroking her fur.

“So, do I have to call you Jimmy now?” Sam asked Castiel as he rolled over on his stomach to mirror his position and smiled. “That might feel kinda… really… weird. But I’ll do it.”

Castiel moved his hand from the cat’s back to brush his fingers through Sam’s hair where it had fallen close to his eyes. “I think it will work if I am Jimmy at work and Castiel everywhere else,” he said. “I would hate it if I were to develop an identity crisis.”

He said the last with a smirk and Sam laughed as he leaned in to kiss him. “Your jokes are getting better,” he murmured.

Castiel smiled at him and leaned closer as well. “Yes? I was rather pleased with that one myself.”

 

  
**XXX**   


**Author's Note:**

> I was a pinch-hit writer for the sassy_otp fan works exchange this last year and wrote this for that. The prompt used was _Superhero AU! Castiel is a superhero. Sam is a reporter_. Which lead me to write something that is pretty much the _Lois and Clark_ equivalent of Sam/Castiel slash.


End file.
